Post navigation

About 2.6 million square feet of retail construction is underway in North Texas.

Traditionally North Texas has been one of the country’s fastest growing retail development markets because, well, we love to shop.

But the last few years, that’s not been so much.

The recession hit the shopping center development market harder than probably any commercial building sector and it’s been slower to come back than, say, the apartment market where building is booming.

So that’s why it’s such a surprise to see a new study by CBRE Group that shows that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is the top retail construction market in the country.

About 2.6 million square feet of shopping, retail and entertainment space was under construction here at the start of the year, the commercial real estate firm reports.

That’s slightly more than Las Vegas and New York City, the number two and three building markets on their list.

Of course retail construction in North Texas is less than half of what it was back in the early 2000s when so many large shopping center projects were under construction.

But current additions of new supermarkets, restaurants, theaters and such add up to a fair amount of new space. And renovations of older centers including Turtle Creek Village in Dallas and Plaza on the Parkway in Addison are included in the mix.

Plus, CBRE Group estimates that about 97 percent of what’s being built in the D-FW area is already leased.

While the U.S. arguably invented the shopping center, these days we are lagging behind in the worldwide push to add more places for people to spend their money.

CBRE Group’s global retail report shows that out of the 10 top retail construction markets, eight are in China. None are in the U.S.